Kai'ckul

Age of Wardens

Tumbledown

Martin Downings was a man who came from humble beginnings, born in a brothel in Worthend. Yet, he aspired to wealth and greater things, and espoused a life that few are willing: that of the Trailblazers. Worthend hurts from a lack of trade, unwilling to use the Greenbirth and it’s coastline, it is forced to enlist other nations for imports and exports. Martin was tasked with rectifying that inadequacy. He was to forge a path east, one that would bear overland trade so that Enders could avoid the costly and long southerly seaward shipping.

The task was long sought after, and the only one which Worthend would supply any of its meager resources to support a Trailblazer. It was a death sentence. It was a fools errand. But with his origin, he had little choice. He struck out for the Indahar Mountain Range. Once where all eyes turned upward to see the seat of Dwarven power, of the riches and achievement possible, now a dark, untamed land where only Wardens walked. Tales of specters, roaming beasts in their habitat, the forces of Kai’ckul and even Wardens themselves harried Downings. Suffering constant exhaustion, dangerous and untenable rock faces, ancient and unmaintained pathways, and eventually a maimed and permanently crippled left hand, he should have given up, or died. Instead, he pressed on, scraping his way to the eastern side of the range, and finding exactly what Worthend needed, even more than a trade route: gold.

Drawn from deep within the earth, the abandoned veins of riches screamed out for discovery, flowing along and eastward in Kai’ckul’s rivers. It was there he found the element which had brought power to Indahold. Fresh gold was a legend, something that had died with Cep Indahar. And Martin would be the one to bring the legend to life. But rather than abide by his agreement with his parent realm, he wanted the wealth more. And so he brought it to An Dun counting on the greed and excitement of Dwarves. On his fifth trip, he came through the Athfort, and found much easier passage east. He had achieved his task, but kept it to himself for the time being.

His wealth grew, and by the time eyes of suspicion had begun to turn dangerously his way, he had turned to Sussenia and the Pale Souls and bought himself a new left hand and a few more arms. He established a prospecting settlement in the east, then another and another, maintaining an iron grip with his ‘left hand’ and slowly forging his own realm.

Wealth slowly flows down to Terminus and through the Athfort, but Tumbledown is firmly entrenched as a powerful Kingdom, despite its single export, dangerous and untamed territory, and meager population. It’s a rough place, to say the least, but greed and excitement overshadow the risks as prospectors stake claims — with a percentage to the Golden Crown of Martin Downings — as they seek a better life, like Martin did, not a decade before.

Though the Council of the Code was reluctant to give him a seat, the Dwarves of the mountain clans insisted, and between their weight, and the literal weight of gold offering to infuse the lackluster economy of the West, they conceded.